Healthy Oatmeal Cookies

One of my new favorite breakfasts is a small batch of heart healthy oatmeal cookies! We’re talking the kind made with less sweetener, lower fat, and lots of good-for-you oatmeal, nuts and/or fruit.

The best part is how flexible this recipe is. It’s loosely based on the oatmeal raisin cookies in Simple Treats. The recipes in this baked goods treasure are all gluten-free and dairy-free and are great for vegans to bring to pot lucks and family gatherings. However, they are far from low-fat (she uses a fair amount of oil), so when I make anything from it for myself, I crank down the fat, preferring to substitute with a nut butter, and use less sweetener.

These oatmeal breakfast cookies are a lot of fun because you can pretty much do anything with them and still wind up with a hearty, satisfying meal that will take you well into the afternoon. They’re really not all that sweet — hence the breakfast cookie nomenclature — so at first you may want to use more and slowly work your way down.

oatmeal cranberry raisin

Preheat oven to 350 and prep a baking sheet with oiled tin foil or wax paper.

In a small bowl, mix the following wet ingredients until smooth:

2 Tb of nut butters (your choice, feel free to mix and match)

1-2 Tb of liquid sweetener (maple syrup, barley malt, jams, etc.)

1 tsp of vanilla extract

water as needed to make creamy (2 Tb?)

In a bigger bowl for dry ingredients and mixing, combine:

65 grams (3/4 cup) oatmeal (usually old-fashioned)

45 grams (3/8 cup) whole wheat flour (obviously not gluten free)

2 tsps baking powder (optional – also look for sodium free kind)

dash of nutmeg

liberal amount of cinnamon

40-60 grams [1/4-1/3 cup] raisins, separated

Optional (if adding any of these, cut back the raisins to match)

15-20 grams vegan chocolate chips

20 grams frozen cranberries (chopped)

30 grams frozen blueberries

1 oz walnut pieces, broken up

Note: As you can tell from all the weight vs volume measurements, I use a kitchen scale. Where no approximate equivalents are indicated, check the packaging for a guideline. For example, the frozen wild blueberries I use, give 1 cup as 140 grams. However, the 32 chocolate chips the bag says should weigh 15 grams, must be referring to the minis

Pour contents of smaller bowl into the dry ingredients and combine well, making sure there are no dry spots. If you need a touch more water, you can add it here, but often it looks like it’s not going to come together and yet eventually does.

Use a Tablespoon measure to scoop out heaping balls and form into flat rounds. Makes about 10 cookies. Place on baking sheet and put in oven for 11 minutes. Turn sheet 180 degrees and cook another 9 minutes. Pull baking sheet out of the oven, leaving the cookies in place for five minutes before transferring to a cooling rack. Enjoy with a glass of non-dairy soy or hemp milk.

oatmeal raisin chocolate chip

oatmeal blueberry cookies

More variations include, using ripe, smashed bananas in the liquid ingredients and walnuts in the dry or increasing the nut butters and sweeteners and going without the added fruits. No matter how you make them, I hope you enjoy and found some inspiration for your own experiments.

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on Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011 at 6:46 pm and is filed under food.
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2 Responses to “Healthy Oatmeal Cookies”

I’ve been dusting off my CR links & am very tickled to find you active! Many of my go-to blogs have been removed or not updated. Not sure if my name will ring a bell from past CR groups/blogs but you’ve shared a ton of helpful info. I’ve been dabbling in CR for a couple of decades & was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease a few years back–which complicates life but I’m doing OK.

I’m on a recipe hunt for healthy snack options. As usual, you’ve got’em!